I finally got to test-drive the new 'nids yesterday, so it's time for a short battlereport. 1,250 points of Orks vs. Tyranids.
My list:
- Dakka Flyrant with tactical instinct
- 2 hive guard
- 2x 15 termagaunts
- 2x 16 hormagaunts
- 2x3 warriors w/ 2 deathspitters and 1 barbed strangler
- Trygon Prime
ork list (from memory):
- 20 shoota boyz
- 20 slugga boyz, wyrdboy attached
- battlewagon filled with a waaghboss and 9 bosses
- 3 waaghbikes
- deff dread
- grots
We rolled up seize ground with dawn of war setup. I'm just gonna post the highlights since I didn't take any notes:
- The first round, nothing at all happened. Literally nothing.
- Second round, Trygon Prime emerged accompanied by 16 hormagaunts (I held both broods in reserve). The hive guards, dakka flyrant and warriors did some
impressive shooting which cost the orc player something around 15 boyz. The trygon took another 4 or so. The Flyrant then got cocky and charged the decimated
mob of slugga boyz (including a boss with power claw and a wyrdboy). In the orc round, the hormagaunts got shot to gak and I lost 12 of the 16 guys who had
just emerged.
- Turn 3, the 4 remaining hormagaunts charged the grots in cover, lost three from a runtherd but barely won the fight, then the last remaining hormagaunt chased of the 10 or so remaining grots. The Trygon ate the battle wagon, then got charged from the emerging bosses (bad idea). The Flyrant held his ground, steadily decimating boyz, while the hive guard shot the bikers.
- Turn 4, the Trygon gets chewed up in the melee. The Flyrant STILL holds out against the slugga boyz mob, by now decimated to the wyrdboy, boss and two boyz. While the powerklaw-wielding boss still didn't dent the Flyrant, one of the boyz actually puts a wound on him with his humble slugga. Waagh! My last squad of hormagaunts finally comes onto the field, but because there were too many targets near the trygon tunnel, I had to let them enter the fray from my table edge, dooming them to do nothing for the entire game. The Hive Guards explode the Deff Dread.
- Turn 5, the bosses chew up one of the warrior mobs, while the flyrant and slugga fight finally ends... only the boss was left standing, with one wound to boot. He promptly runs to one of the objectives.
- Turn 6, 6 of my remaining termagaunts go after the boss who just claimed an objective and kill him. He withstood a Tyrant attack, but my Termagaunts finished him off. They promptly claimed the objective, leaving me with two objectives and my enemy with only one troop choice left and nothing to kill my objective holders, so he conceded.
Afterthoughts: Orks are as tough an opponent as ever, especially bosses. I was very afraid of the battlewagon, so recklessly charged it with the trygon, which in turn unsurprisingly got chewed up by the bosses. All in all, the Trygon performed poorly. He killed a couple boyz and a 90 point-tank. Meh. The Hive guard did their job very well, and I'll be sure to field them in many games to come. New Synapse rules meant I could stop babysitting my gaunts once they held an objective. The Flyrant was impressive, but again, he didn't make back his points. Then again, I left him in an attritious fight with a large ork mob without any backup, serves me right. All in all, I think the monstrous creatures really are overpriced now, but eh, I'll keep using a couple of 'em. Especially the Tyrant is always worth it, maybe I'll get one specced for close combat with a couple guard attached.
After what I've read and a testgame (admittedly only a small one), I have to say I prefer the 4th ed codex. The way weapon strength worked was nice and fluffy, and so far I haven't seen anything in the new codex that made me go "wow" over the old one.